14 ms·
Kansas runs one of the most secretive state governments
- macintux 9y agoI don't know how you pivot a deeply-entrenched cultural problem like this. Pass more laws, if you can get the legislature to act against what's typically their own self-interest, but of course the same bureaucrats who don't want to share the information have to enforce those laws. And when it's always been done that way, nearly everyone still left in the system has the same negative reaction to transparency.
- rhcom2 9y agoOne method would be what Tonganoxie did in the article. Get pissed and keep making noise until the blowback is unmanageable, if that doesn't work vote them all out.
- macintux 9y agoYou can't vote out the bureaucracy.
- labster 9y agoExpand the bureaucracy by adding a Department of Transparency.
- tonysdg 9y agoHehe reminds me of the computer engineering adage: "The only thing that can't be solved by another layer of indirection is too many layers of indirection."
- whataretensors 9y agoSounds Orwellian. Corrupt systems seldom improve after being fed.
- Spooky23 9y agoNot at all. A big issue with government transparency is that agencies control data and have little incentive to release. Having professional data oversight and built in transparency would build institutional protections against Governors of Mr. Brownback’s ilk.
- labster 9y agoThank you! My club in university was Students for an Orwellian Society. It's good to hear I still have the knack for it.
- vkou 9y agoYou absolutely can vote in politicians who can fire people, until the toxic culture of the bureaucracy is replaced with something else. In this case, though, the bureaucracy exists to protect the politicians.
- mythrwy 9y agoIn theory yes. In practice never seems to happen like that.
- cortesoft 9y agoYou mean "Drain the swamp"? Well, that has worked great so far.
- vkou 9y agoIt works better when your idea of draining the swamp isn't stuffing it with your cronies. Many countries (That are not the United States) have this largely figured out.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoYou can fire them. Differentiating between a cleaning of house and heartless cutting of services, however, is difficult.
- nikanj 9y agoFiring people protected by government contracts and strong unions is surprisingly hard.
- vkou 9y agoC-level people in those organizations are not protected by strong unions or government contracts. (Although they may come with golden parachutes.) They are also the people who can institute meaningful change.
- MsMowz 9y agoKansas has a tiny government already, I'm not sure there's much left to clean out except the elected positions.
- dmix 9y ago> heartless cutting of services Quite the dichotomy you've established. Cutting of services is automatically 'heartless'? As they are always useful, necessary, and better than alternatives... while cleaning house to replace them with another set of politicians with the same prerogative is the 'good' solution? Context matters. Neither are automatically better solutions, nor is chopping services necessarily 'heartless'.
- ocschwar 9y agoIt's not the bureaucracy. It's the politicos sitting on top of the bureaucracy. The bureaucrats would rather do their jobs and give honest reports about it to the legislature and the public.
- Spooky23 9y agoYou can fire apointeees who run the place. Nobody working in CPS wants to be in a place where child abuse is covered up and ignored. That’s a leadership problem.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoRedistribute voting power nationally so that someone living in Wyoming doesn't have 5x the voting power as someone in California, then let the bad cultural ideas expire from natural causes and let their kids with less bad cultural ideas take up the mantel.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoThis is what "land of opportunity" means to many people, 50+ sovereign jurisdictions to shape the legal framework however you want with no outside pressure possible. Everyone else is playing by a less effective set of rules.
- vkou 9y agoMarkets require informational symmetry to be efficient. Secrecy is anathema to all forms of opportunity other then graft and corruption.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 9y agoThe point is that many people who claim to want beautiful markets actually liked rigged ones in which they can practice the graft and corruption you refer to. Put another way, some people who say things you find agreeable are hypocrites who are trying to exploit your good will.
- pmoriarty 9y agoIs this lack of transparency a big concern to Kansas voters?
- vkou 9y agoNo, they are generally more concerned with fighting a culture war. Asking what voters care about is a red herring. Voters care about things that the press talks about, and the press is owned by the two parties.
- MBCook 9y agoCompared to the state basically going bankrupt and ruining some of the highest rated public schools in the country? There are a lot of issues. I’m not sure how high this is. I’m not sure many people even know about it.
- utexaspunk 9y ago...are those not related to the State being corrupt?
- MBCook 9y agoThe schools are a result of the budget. The budget is a result of the Republican idea that extreme tax cuts bring revenue gains. Neither of those is actual corruption. Corruption may have made things worse (I don’t know), but it’s not actually corruption. Just bad policy. I think Louisiana is having similar issues for the exact same tax-cut reason. NPR’s Planet Money covered the Kansas plan in January: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/11/509378842/episode-577-the-kansas-experiment https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/11/509378842/epis...
- fencepost 9y agoIs it corruption if those selling the approach actually understand what will really happen but see it as a great way to advance their own fortunes? I'm never quite sure what kind of mixture of the gullible, the misunderstanding, true believers, the very earnest, grifters, con men and sociopaths I'm looking at. Oh, and those who are true believers in other areas and just don't care about the fiscal issues as long as their pet thing gets appropriate lip service. Oh, and end-timers who think Revelations is coming, the world's going to end for everyone except the ungodly, and I might as well get everything I can before I ascend. Unfortunately I think there are way too many people out there with a philosophy of "the best thing about a few billion dollars of churn is that I can probably scrape a few million in profit off it." Edit: oh, and would you like to buy some bone broth to make you feel like a caveman?
- jorblumesea 9y agoI'm always confused as to how the Koch-funded candidates did so well on almost comically evil platforms. It seems the referendum on "Obama" policies in 2010 did nothing but damage the states they were elected in and did little to solve any real problems. People thought they were sticking it to the feds but really just shot themselves in the foot. Massive cuts in every department, even things like transportation which shouldn't be a hyper partisan issue. I get that abortion clinics or healthcare is a hot button issue, but building roads? Who looked at that platform and said, you know, I wish we'd stop spending so much money on maintaining our crumbling roads? Populist anger did little to improve anyone's lives and you also saw this in the 2016 election. For as angry as everyone was at the status quo, what do we have now? Even worse status quo, vis a vis the new tax plan which is just a oligarchic power grab and a president who literally cannot govern to save his life.
- stevenwoo 9y agoPeople vote on party lines a super high rate in most areas on the US, it's close to 90% except in unusual cases. Contemporarily it's the reason GOP voters have a tough time choosing between a sexual predator and a Democrat in the Alabama special Senate election, one side thinks the other side is so evil they feel this is a difficult choice. Also gerrymandering for districts make it so once it's guaranteed to be a party seat, the primaries can skew towards the extreme of that party.
- rbritton 9y agoAllegations of sexual misconduct and an actual conviction are two very different things, though modern society tends to treat them as equivalent. I don't know what actually happened, but it's dangerous to ever let go of that legal right.
- koenigdavidmj 9y agoAnd the end result isn't even the advertised low-tax state, at least for normal citizens. Topeka's sales tax rate (including the city portion) is over 9%, which is right up there with me in Seattle (about 10%). Plus an income tax (Washington has none). Plus property taxes that are higher than mine. Plus personal property tax on vehicles, so car registration in Kansas costs basically the same as in the transportation benefit district I live in. Corrupt as hell, and actively lying about the reason the state has no money.
- ModernMech 9y ago> And the end result isn't even the advertised low-tax state, at least for normal citizens. That's the point. It's playing out again on the national stage. When they say "tax cuts" they don't mean tax cuts for you, silly. Tax cuts are for people who meet the minimum threshold for being able to take advantage of pass-through rates. Not for the mother of 5 working two jobs just to get her kids through a school that's only open 4 days a week.
- komali2 9y agoA mother of 5 because her state has restrictive, non-factual or non-existent sex education, and won't support free access to birth control. Working two jobs to get her kids through school because of a lack of childcare social services and a high burden of education cost on teachers and families. Schools only open 4 days a week because of Republican refusal to invest in education, which has been demonstrated to be the best long-term investment a country can make. I personally have abandoned all faith in anybody with an (R) next to their name, and anybody that bubbles in an (R) on a ballot.
- rayiner 9y agoI live in a (D) State. My tax rate is comparable to what it would be in the UK or Germany. We’re among the highest spenders nationwide in education (and by extension the world). But the roads are still terrible, the trains don’t run on time, the schools are just okay, and our largest city has a murder rate about 20x that of big Western European cities. There’s few public services—no child care, no health care, no labor protections, etc.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoA lack of transparent government somewhere like Kansas is a much smaller problem for the governed than lack of transparency in a state with a larger government bureaucracy. edit: It's still a problem, I'm just pointing out that the per-capita harm of a state like NY or CA playing by the same transparency rules as KS would be much greater. This may be why the people of KS are more willing to put up with it, the net harm to them is low because the government's involvement in their lives is low.
- jechamt 9y agoFor a citizen and their family that live somewhere, it's either 100% or 0%. It's of marginal benefit to say a 'problem is much smaller' than somewhere else; this is similar to telling those citizens and their families they can solve it by moving, which has its own issues.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoI meant more along the lines of a terrible government that mostly stays out of your way is no worse than a mediocre one that involves itself in your daily life.
- jwilk 9y agoIt times out for me. Here's an archived copy: https://archive.is/4fep5 https://archive.is/4fep5
- conductr 9y agoOn the topic of the 'suicide curve' freeway. I watched the video of those wrecks. It's all people driving too fast for that curve. Instead of seeking funds to completely rebuild the freeway, maybe they could liberally implement rumble strips and serious looking signage/flashing lights. These are cheap fixes.
- briffle 9y agoor a couple of traffic control officers, who could help generate revenue for the state police, while at the same time, encouraging everyone to slow down....
- niftich 9y agoI was surprised to find that the Kansas City Star's recent article on the 'Suicide Curve' [1] (also linked from the topic's article) fails to mention the fact that in Kansas City, Kansas, there is a perfectly good alternative route to the 'Suicide Curve' 1 mile away, built in 1990: Interstate 670 [2]. In fact, both eastbound (in Kansas) [3] and westbound (in Missouri) [4], the leftmost three lanes channel drivers to I-670. In this area, I-670 is a straight-line through route, while I-70 is a meandering mess [5][6]. [1] http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article145534779.html http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article145534779.html [2] https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-670_moks.html https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-670_moks.html [3] https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0918284,-94.6332342,3a,75y,96.47h,88.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOedKEIr_iYu8xbPQphByMA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0918284,-94.6332342,3a,75y,9... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0962355,-94.5667216,3a,60y,280.35h,92.31t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skpCZzx4Zpa85QOXhl-50IA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0962355,-94.5667216,3a,60y,2... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Kansas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Kansas [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Missouri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Missouri
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jcranmer 9y agoThe cheap fix would be to drop some Jersey barriers and shut off the exit altogether. Looking at the highway configuration in the area (particularly the fact that I-670 is just a few blocks to the south and has equal access to the area), the traffic implications of closing off the exit wouldn't be too bad. Particularly since people driving too fast is a sign that the utilization is low enough that people can drive too fast.
- crushedpeanuts 9y agoThere's The Kansas Open Records Act they could use. Not once, not twice, not ten times. Bury them in them. Use the ones they fulfill as data to inform the public, the ones they don't, well make them sink time and funding into defending why they won't. It's only secret because the media and public is apathetic. Hammer down the doors and sooner or later they'll have to seriously consider whether not being open with the public is worth it.
- Induane 9y agoNot true. They sent KORA requests for that exact states reason. They say the staffing isn't sufficient to handle the current volume of KORA requests and thus the request is dismissed. This is apparently legal.
- crushedpeanuts 9y agoYeah, after looking at a couple of agencies pages discussing it, it's like you can ask, but 400 things are exempted, we're not going to compile for you (already has to be a record of note, not a new data point), and basically reserve the right to tell you to fuck off. sad, really. A proper FOI approach would give the constituents a reasonable chance to be informed, but I guess that's the whole idea.
- brianmarti 9y agoI am from Kansas and this is really frightening to read. What on earth is going on and why are they deleting their paper trail...
- tasty_freeze 9y agoAlso, Kris Kobach is their Secretary of State. He campaigned on and won special powers to stamp out the rampant voting by dead people and illegal aliens. 20,000 dead people were voting. He personally knew of hundreds of cases of illegal aliens voting. After two years he found nine verified cases, with no clear pattern to them (some were confused old people, some R's some D's). Unrepentant, he is Trump's boy in pushing for voting "reforms" nationally. Although he supported Trump's claim that 3,000,000 illegal aliens voted for Hillary Clinton, he hasn't explained why none have been found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris_Kobach#Voter_fraud_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris_Kobach#Voter_fraud_claims